Until the 1940s, a stretch of Washington Street, especially from Battery Place to Rector Street, was the home of the city's Little Syria neighborhood, which consisted primarily of Christian Arabimmigrants from present day Lebanon and Syria. The neighborhood and its homes, then described by The New York Times as the "heart of New York's Arab world", were condemned and razed to make way for the approaches to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which opened in 1950.[2]

Because Washington Street is so far west, public transportation in the immediate area is scarce. The crosstown M8bus crosses Washington Street in both directions, westbound on Christopher Street and eastbound on West 10th Street; the crosstown M21 bus runs south on Washington Street between Houston Street and Spring Street before turning back east.